Thursday, April 14, 2016

2015-2016 USASA SBX Year-End Re-Cap

Sunrise Over the Boardercross Course

The
regular race season ended up being much shorter than usual with my relocation
to the East Coast to work as Snowsports School Director for Seven Springs Mountain Resort.The winter didn’t
really get going until early January and ended quickly in early March.The USASA Appalachian Series only had one
weekend of racing at Massanutten in Virginia.I was lucky to get time off to make the 2nd day
of competition and qualify for Nationals.Big thanks to the App Series for running the event even though it was
pouring down rain all day.

As
usual, I was paired up with some different classes (1 Masters and 2 Open Class
racers) during the day’s races.I like
mixing it up with younger age groups as it makes me ride better and it’s a good
challenge.I finished 3rd in
the first race and won the second, which really meant 2 first place finishes
since I was the only Legend racer.The
course was in pretty good shape and had a lot of features considering the lack
of snow available to build with.Fast
forward to USASA Nationals, I arrived at Copper the week before to coach a few
athletes during the Rocky Mountain Series sponsored practice days.Julia Tidwell was making her first Nationals
visit (Julia later won Gold in her race!) and Mel Diaz qualified for his first season competing in the Open
Class.We had awesome snow and course
conditions for practice all week and both athletes did really well with the
concepts and skills we focused on during training.I enjoyed working with both athletes and added some extra fun to their experience by introducing them to Nationals’ traditions
like the pre-race lasagna dinner.

Yummy

Race
day was super-sunny and warm, and though the snow got slower throughout the day
(if you had the wrong wax!), the course was in good shape for the entire
competition.I qualified with the
fastest run (64.10) in time trials by .14 seconds, which meant I got first gate
choice for heats and finals.My focus
going into the first heat was to pull harder out of the gate, get better/faster
and keep hitting my line through the course. And with how I handled the first feature in time trials, there was plenty of room for improvement.

PHOTO VAST::vastaction.com

I won the 1st heat with a much cleaner run and kept the same focus in mind for
finals.I felt like I was getting faster
with each run and wanted to continue improving.It helped that my board had the perfect wax prep and was not affected by
the changing snow conditions (thanks Purl Wax!).

In finals I started to pull away over the
backside of the 1st feature and kept pushing.Whether I win or lose, I want to have a better run than the previous
one.I crossed the finish line first for
my 3rd Nationals Championship victory in the last 4 years.It
was a good day of racing and cool to have such a quality level of competition
where everyone was pushing each other to ride faster each race.

Podium Selfie Fun

I
am extremely grateful for the support I receive throughout the competition and
off-season.Generation UCANis my main
fuel source for training and on race day.The consistent quality results are the reason I make this part of my
performance nutrition plan.If you’d
like to experience stronger training sessions and competition finishes I highly
recommend trying UCAN (click here to get 10% off).

Purl Wax is my wax of choice and I was really impressed with how fast my board ran
with the wide variety of snow conditions I rode through on race day (from frozen
in the AM to soft spring snow in the PM).

I
use POC body armor, helmet and goggles (and sometimes gloves) during my
races.Having such good vision and
protection gives me a lot of confidence to push faster each race.

With such limited on-snow time this year, I
don’t need a break, so I’m already into my off-season training routine and
looking forward to some mountain biking in the Front Range. It’s definitely nice to be back in Denver.